


Take Your Straight Line for a Curve

by chalcopyrite



Category: Bandom
Genre: Gen, creepy robots, it's warmer in the basement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-28
Updated: 2011-08-28
Packaged: 2017-10-23 03:50:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/245998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chalcopyrite/pseuds/chalcopyrite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Midtown's split up and My Chem never happened.  Washed-up rockstar Gabe Saporta needs a place to lie low; discontented artist Gerard Way needs someone to talk to.  These days you can buy a friend, but does that help when the most important piece in your life is missing?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take Your Straight Line for a Curve

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Inlovewithnight for the fab **Cotton Candy and a Rotten Mouth** mix, and to Creepylicious for the four (count 'em!) great art pieces. Links for those are at the end.

* * *

Gabe wakes up when someone kicks him in the head.

That's what it feels like, anyway — a big boom right in his ear and the whole world shakes. He bites his tongue and while he's trying not to yell over that, he hears swearing somewhere above him. He turns his head and smacks his face into — cardboard?

If he squints, he can remember how the cardboard came into it — last night, the raid, panicking and ditching the car, getting lost in a string of backyards, spotting the delivery guy just as he gave up on anyone answering the door, faked the signature and left the box. Sleeping in a box — or anywhere — sounded like a fine idea at oh-fuck in the morning, crashing on fuckup and stale adrenaline and with gunshots a few blocks over, but now his legs are starting to complain about being squashed, there are ants or something in his hair, and he really needs to piss.

And someone just kicked him in the head.

There's a scrabbling noise over his head and more light leaks in where he wasn't able to close the flaps properly. The same voice that was swearing asks, "Are you okay?"

Gabe doesn't answer. Partly he doesn't know if the previous contents of the box would answer, and partly he's busy wondering if he can make a break for it and get away before anyone gets a good look at him. From the background sounds, though, he's guessing there's people around going to work and school and whatever, and while a strange man wandering around before dawn maybe didn't get that much attention, a strange man sprinting away in broad daylight is going to get noticed. Gabe doesn't really want anyone noticing him right now.

Also, he doesn't think he can sprint. His left leg feels like it's one evil thought from, like, tying itself in a knot and kicking him in the balls. When he gets out of here, Gabe is going to smack himself so hard. The fuck was he thinking?

Oh right, he wasn't. Story of his fucking life.

There's more scrabbling noises, and then the box starts moving. Gabe's just hoping it's into the house, not out to the curb for the trash pickup. There's a bunch of thumps all together, like stairs, and by the time Gabe's feet slam down into the box one last time, his head's joined in on the yelling. Gabe is going to reform and lead a blameless life, and he is never again going to try to face down Marino at poker, and he is especially not going to do it in a Mob hangout when the police come banging on the door. Fuck his _life_.

The box rocks back to upright, and Gabe can stop hating his life so out loud for a few seconds. Then there's a punching noise, sort of _sharp_ , and the side of the box rips open, and Gabe can see again.

Not much; even after the near-darkness of the box, it's pretty dim in the room. But he can see lank, dark hair, a round face, and holy fuck that's a knife the guy's holding. Gabe's all set to scream like a girl, and fuck whoever hears it, but he chokes on the inhale. While he's sorting himself out, the guy does something with his thumb and stuffs what Gabe can now see is a short Exacto knife or something into his pocket.

"Um. Hi?" the guy says. "Are you okay? Sorry about kicking the box."

Gabe's still stuck on panicking, so he just blinks back at him.

The guy tips his head sideways. "Wait, is there some switch or something I need to press? No, I guess you can't tell me if there is — I should get you out of this, right, and maybe there's something..." The guy rips the box down a little farther, then reaches over the torn edge and gropes around next to Gabe's hip. Which, _okay_ , but at the same time _no_. Gabe jerks away and the guy yanks his hand back like it's been burned.

"Sorry! I'm — I really wasn't expecting this, I thought — never mind." He pushes his hair off his face and looks around the room. "Out of the box, right," he says to himself, and comes back to pulling down a wide strip from one side of the box. Gabe helps once he can move his arms properly — seriously, _not_ his best idea — and stamps up and down a few times to wake his legs up. Those boxes were not designed for tall people, though the limp shape he pulled out of it before crawling in didn't seem to mind. The factory probably don't get complaints, anyway.

"I'm sorry, I have to go to work," the guy says. "I'll be back later, do whatever you like — um, within reason. Like, don't break anything? Do you have some kind of directive? I — nevermind, I'll sort it out tonight." He picks up a messily stuffed satchel from the floor and leaves, stopping at the door to cast another look back over his shoulder and say, "Um, bye," before he leaves. After a few seconds, Gabe hears the creak-slam of the bulkhead doors that were so securely locked this morning when all he wanted was to find a place to lie down.

Gabe glares in the direction the guy vanishes in, but when there's no more noise for a few seconds, he goes back to his first priority. There's got to be a bathroom somewhere, or at this point he's not above using a houseplant. He beelines across the room to the door the guy left through. The first door he opens turns out to be a laundry room, but he's past caring. He unzips and pees in the sink, sighing with relief. Halfway through he realizes the house may not be empty, but there's no stopping now, so he just tries to be quiet as he lets the water run a little and drinks some from the faucet. Next time he hides in a box, he's not going to be drinking beforehand. Of course, he probably wouldn't have hidden in the box if he _hadn't_ been drinking, so six of one, half a dozen whatever.

He rubs a handful of water over his face before he checks there's no one in the hallway, and then sneaks back to the room he started in.

The room smells like — he doesn't even know. Like animals live in here. Like animals _die_ in here. He can't see what's in heaps on the floor, because there's only one shitty little window at ground-level outside, but he can guess at old clothes and old food. Possibly an old body, it's really kind of unreal.

He could change his mind. The guy didn't get a good look at him, doesn't know his name. He could walk out of here, go home and lie low there.

He pulls his phone out and scrolls through the menu while he thinks about it. Truth of it is, there's no one in there he wants to call or ask for a pickup. He has three messages waiting, and he doesn't want to read or listen to any of them. He could call Rob, but he's not sure if they're talking to each other right now, and this is not how he wants to reopen negotiations. Finally he turns the phone off — he's tired of having it glued to his head, anyway — and shoves it away again. So pretending to be a bot and hiding out in some random guy's basement until people stop looking for him is a shitty plan that he didn't think through all the way. Right now that sounds just fine to him.

He's gonna pretend to be a bot, he's gonna be one badass bot. First order of business is figuring out what the fuck he's doing.

The delivery slip's still crumpled where he dropped it while he was on the phone, and he frowns down at it. It's ripped across the top, and a casual look around doesn't turn up the rest of it. All that's left of the name is 'Gera,' and he's going to guess the next letters are either LD or RD; he'll assume that's the guy who opened the box. Unless he's just, like, some random dude who lives in the basement. Which is — Gabe's not going to follow that one through, because it leads to places like putting the lotion on its skin and he'd rather focus on how he gets out of here alive. Though there was that knife, he can't quite forget the knife. On the other hand, the delivery sheet says he's in Belleville, so Gabe can't really blame the dude for having it. He lived in Belleville, he'd open the door with a knife. Or he'd just, like, live in the basement like a crazy recluse, which is what seems to be going on here.

In any case, whatever the guy's name is and if he's the one the box was for or not, he loses. Either he's a creeper who lives in a basement and opens other people's boxes, or he's a creeper who orders his own creepybots to…. open.

That sentence doesn't sound any better when Gabe runs it back through his head. Maybe he should be rethinking this plan.

He shuffles through the styrofoam and cardboard from the box, and turns up what possibly-Gerard was looking for in Gabe's crotch. For what it is, the user manual is pretty skinny, maybe 20 pages stapled together. It looks a little like someone did it at Kinko's. The top sheet says "Getting to Know Your Special Friend™!" Right, because this wasn't already skeevy enough. Still, Gabe needs to have a clue of what he's doing. He tries to think if he knows anything about bots, really, and comes up with nothing useful. Nothing at all, really.

He flips the manual open; there's a short rundown on how to give instructions that a Special Friend can understand — they never actually say "for kinky sex," but Gabe can't help feeling like it's lurking behind every other line — and a little bit about care and everyday maintenance — he's not going to have to pretend that he explodes in water or something, which is good, because that shit would be really hard to fake — and a whole lot about how if any of a huge list of things goes wrong, call them and don't try to pry its head open or anything. That's — okay, that's a relief, because Gabe likes his head the way it is, even when it lands him with stupid ideas like this one.

It's weird — everyone talks _about_ them, in a sideways, under the table sort of way, but it's always hearsay, or made to sound that way. Everyone knows what bots are _really_ for, so no one admits to having one, or even knowing about a real one — either you're fucked-up, or you're desperate. It's not like you run into them at a bar, or buying groceries, or whatever, either. He thinks he remembers someone saying a bot's not really like a person, not right, but he can't remember any more and he can't even put a face to the voice saying the words. Even the manual doesn't say a thing about what it's like to talk to a bot, what it feels like; they're more intent on plugging how your new Special Friend can do everything a human can do! Only better! And they're cheap and hygenic!

Gabe can't shake the idea that this brochure was written by someone who watches too much porn. He'd never suspected there was such a thing, but now his brain feels kind of … sticky.

What he really wants is how someone could expect their bot to respond; there's not so much on that — apart from the little bit on "If your Special Friend™ doesn't understand your directions" — but from the way he seemed confused, maybe could-be-Gerald doesn't know much more about this than Gabe. It didn't seem like he's had a whole string of pet bots or anything.

As far as kinky sex goes — well, he'll figure that out when it comes up. If this Gera-dude's into, like, furry scat, Gabe can claim a programming malfunction or some shit. That might end up with him being sent back, though, and he's not sure what happens to bots that get returned, but it's probably nothing that should happen to a person. He might never have to deal with it, though; how wrong can things go in a couple of days? He stamps down hard on that thought before he jinxes himself into spending the next thirty years in people's basements.

The manual has a page of contact info, a website address, and that's the end of that. Gabe ruffles the book once more, then flips it into the wreckage of the box. So he'll be able to fake it all right; if he had a computer… he looks around the room. Nothing. If there's a computer, it's a laptop, and the guy took it with him. So much for that plan. Gabe goes over to what looks like a desk, or maybe just a table, in the corner, but all that's there is some sketchpads and old dishes. Nasty. Well, the sketchpads are probably fine, not like they have mold growing on them or anything, but the dishes look like they're trying to reinvent the wheel right there in the bottom of the crusty spoon.

There's gotta be more to the house than just the basement, Gabe saw it. He goes back out to the skinny hallway and pokes around. One way leads to steps up to a bulkhead door — that must be what he bumped down. The other way goes past the laundry room, a tiny toilet that he missed before — oops — and then around a corner to another set of stairs up. That must lead to — well, probably the kitchen, given how houses usually go, but into the house, anyway. Gabe tiptoes up the steps and listens at the door. He's about to open it when he hears someone clearing their throat — not in the room on the other side of the door, but close by — and a creak. That's the end of the nickel tour for now, then. Too bad — Gabe'd been hoping he might find a snack up there, too. He retreats back down the steps even more quietly than he went up them, and sneaks back to the bedroom.

It hasn't gotten any cleaner in the meantime, and it sure doesn't smell any better. Even the smell (and the dishes) aren't enough to kill Gabe's appetite now he's started thinking about food, though, and when he spots a pizza box on top of a pile of stuff next to the bed, he can't help but hope.

He holds his breath as he opens it, but it looks fine and — he chances a quick sniff — it smells fine, too. Pizza cheese is made of plastic or something anyway; Gabe's not sure it can go bad. He's not about to leave this one around to find out, though; he snarfs two of the three slices straight away, but figures he'd better save the third one for later. It could be a long day.

The bed smells kind of funky — okay, no, it smells like something's been nesting — but since nothing actually runs out when he kicks the mattress, he figures he's probably safe from, like, gophers chewing on his hair or anything. It's comfortable, anyway, and it feels good to just stretch out. He's still stiff from the box, and tired and kind of muzzy, and a little nap can't hurt. There's nothing else he can do, anyway.

He wakes up with a crick in his neck from one of the pillows that bunched up funny, but at least his legs aren't twitching anymore. This isn't so bad, really — he can spend a few days napping in the name of justice or whatever. His head's stopped feeling slow and hungover, too, so that's a win. If it was now, he wouldn't think hiding out in a cardboard box was a valid plan.

Great timing, self. Still, he's in a mood to be more philosophical about the whole thing, see where it takes him. When he shifts over and the TV remote falls out of the tangled bedclothes, he decides he's pretty set for the day. Things could be a whole lot worse.

Four hours of muted telenovelas later, Gabe's about ready to change his mind. Making up storylines for the crazy shit on the screen was fun for a while, but he doesn't have anyone to tell them to, and he thinks it would probably be more fun if everyone was at least a little drunk. As it is, though, he's tired of waiting to find out if Luisa's sister's secret clone is going to discover Herbert's (he was originally Ricardo, but he was too much of a douche to keep an awesome name) underground donut ring, or whatever it was Gabe decided is in the mysterious house that everyone keeps going in and out of, and also the forced inactivity is starting to get to him. He can't turn the TV sound on because he's not sure if there's still someone upstairs (and as bad as telenovelas are without sound, the rest of daytime TV is even worse), he can't move around too much, he has to stealth-pee, and there's nothing to read but weird spooky novels that Gabe does not, right now, have the patience for.

He makes the bed out of pure boredom (and because the rucked-up sheets were getting uncomfortable to lie on — Gabe has sensitive skin, okay, he doesn't know why people always snicker), and moves the more toxic dishes from under the bed to the stacks on the desk. He doesn't want to be breathing that shit. It'd be better if the whole place smelled less like socks, but fuck it, if the room was smaller and had wheels it'd be no worse than the van back when. He can deal.

Still, even with all the quiet distractions he can find, it's a long afternoon. Gabe's about ready to say damn the torpedos and go running down the street screaming — or take another nap — when the creak-slam of the bulkhead door jolts him into sharp-edged awakeness. He only has a few seconds to panic, though, before the door of the room opens and Gerald-or-Gerard comes in. He does a little double-take, like he'd forgotten Gabe was here.

"Hi?" he says, like he's not certain, and puts his satchel down next to the door. It falls over and a bunch of paper falls out the top.

Gabe's not sure if he's supposed to respond, because it's not like the user manual had a section on "How to pretend your brain came out of a machine" in it, but the dude looks like he's waiting for an answer, so he says, "Hi," back.

There's another second or so of staring and blinking before something sets the guy's mouth off again. "So, I really wasn't expecting this. Actually, I wasn't even sure I made the order, I mean when I woke up. It was — anyway. I'm — what am I supposed to do?"

Poor dude looks totally lost; he definitely doesn't know what to expect. Gabe restrains his whoop of victory, and instead just crosses over to where he stacked the pieces of the box. "Here's the manual."

"Oh! That's — thanks, that's great." He takes it and starts paging through — Gabe can't help notice he wrinkles his nose at the cover, too. After he's flipped through a couple of sheets he looks up. "Do you have a name?"

"I'm Gabe," Gabe says, because with everything else he does not need to try to remember that he said he was called Alfredo or some shit.

"I'm Gerard," the guy says, and actually _holds his hand out_ for Gabe to shake, which he does. This guy is peculiar, but Gabe's not bored yet, that's for sure. Also, now Gabe's not focused on how he's got a knife, he looks a little familiar. Maybe Gabe's seen him around somewhere, which could get awkward really fast, but he hasn't given any sign of recognizing Gabe yet. He may be okay.

"Nice to meet you."

"So, uh." Gerard flaps the manual a couple of times. "This thing says I'm supposed to tell you what to do. Do I have to? I don't think I want to."

Who buys a bot when they don't want to give orders? Gabe shelves that one for later and just assures Gerard, "You don't have to give orders."

"Oh good." Gerard looks relieved. He starts towards the bed, then pulls up. "You cleaned stuff?" He sounds a little squeaky. It may be a new idea to him.

"Just a little. I wasn't sure what I was allowed to do," Gabe says. Playing dumb works in other situations; why not here?

"Oh, you can do — whatever," Gerard flaps a hand. "Just not, like, anything that'll get you arrested. Or me," he adds as an afterthought. "But, um, you didn't move the sketchbooks, did you?"

"They're wherever you left them." Gabe shrugs. He pivots in the middle of the room, watching as Gerard goes to the desk, the pile beside the bed, the mess _under_ the bed — he must find all the sketchbooks or whatever he's looking for, because when he's back at the bed he flops down with one of the books next to him, and wiggles back until he's leaning against the wall.

"Thanks for cleaning up. I should have said that."

"You're welcome."

"Don't you want to sit down?" Gerard indicates the other end of the bed. "Or, um, do you sit down? Do you need to — recharge or anything?"

"I'm fine," Gabe assures him, because he has visions of Gerard trying to stick his finger in an electrical socket or something. Even if it would do wild things to his hair.

Gerard casts around, and hits on the remote, left where Gabe ditched it after he got tired of trying to make up what Maria and Eduardo or whoever were doing up there on the screen. "Wanna watch a movie?"

"Sure," Gabe says. At least with Gerard home, he can hear what the movie is actually about. He parks his ass on the end of the bed while Gerard flips through a folder full of DVDs labeled in scrawled Sharpie.

" _Jaws_ sound good?"

"Sure."

Gerard sticks the DVD in the player. He comes back and picks up the sketchbook again, propping it on his folded knees. Gabe leans sideways so he's not between Gerard and the TV, but Gerard just pats at the bed next to him. "You can come up here, if you want."

"I'm good," Gabe says. Gerard seems like an okay guy so far, but he did think it was a good idea to buy a bot.

Gerard doesn't push it though; he just shrugs and turns his attention back to the screen. Gabe's not sure why he even needed to put the movie on; Gabe loves _Jaws_ as much as the next dude, but Gerard seems to know every single line. He barely even needs to pay attention to the screen.

"You've watched this a lot, huh?" Gabe says after a while, just to make conversation. He's melted down the wall and is only barely sitting on the edge of the bed anymore. His head's propped up, but other than that he's just gonna go limp. It's probably gonna hurt like a bitch in a few minutes, but for now it feels good.

"It's Mikey's favorite," Gerard says absently, head down over whatever he's drawing.

"Who's Mikey?" Maybe he's the person Gabe heard upstairs. Though if so, why isn't he down here watching his favorite movie?

Gerard acts like he didn't even hear Gabe, just looks around. "Hey, wasn't there pizza? I thought I had some left over last night."

"Not that I saw," Gabe lies.

"Huh." Gerard looks around for another second or two, then gets up and shuffles over to the door. Gabe hears a few creaks, then footsteps overhead — that was the kitchen stairs, then — and a few minutes later, Gerard comes back, poking at a melamine bowl with a fork. He settles back on the bed and pokes a little more before he looks up at Gabe. "You don't need to eat, right? I mena, you run on — batteries or electricity or something?"

Gabe had been holding out a sliver of hope that Gerard hadn't read that bit of the manual. Still, at least he knows there's ramen upstairs, now. "I'm fine," he says. He'll manage until Gerard falls asleep or whatever.

"Okay." Gerard seems happy to take that at face value. He doesn't even pay much attention to the ramen, just puts it on the floor by the bed and takes odd bites between doing something with that sketchpad and looking at Gabe like he wants to say something. Finally Gabe says, "What?"

"What's it like?"

"What is?" There's a part of the conversation Gabe missed, here.

"Being — what you are." Gerard's handwave takes in Gabe head to toe, though Gabe notices he doesn't seem able to say "bot." "Having programming, all that."

There was absolutely nothing in the manual about quizzing your Special Friend on their inner experience. Who knows if they even have one. Gabe thinks fast. "I don't know. I mean, this is how I've always been, so I can't tell you something is different."

Gerard tips his head to one side. "Do you have memories?"

"Yeah," Gabe says, because of course, and then realises that could get him in trouble. "I remember you opening the box."

Gerard's face does something complicated. "But before that? Do you remember anything — before? Or do they, I don't know, give you memories or something?"

A shrug seems like the safest response. Gabe shuffles his ass back on the bed so he's at least sort of sitting up again, down where he can still see Gerard sideways. "I guess."

"But you don't _know_." Gerard sits forward, intent. "What if you have all these memories and you can't access them — like, you recorded what was happening before you even knew. What if all of that is in there?"

Gabe has no fucking clue. Who thinks about this sort of thing? Other than this wackadoodle, anyway.

"Why did you want a — Special Friend?" he counters. He almost says 'bot,' but he's pretty sure a bot wouldn't refer to themselves that way; bad PR or something.

Gerard scrunches up his face and stares at the ceiling.

"I'm not sure," he says. "I mean, shit, it was like 4 am and I don't think I'd slept the night before either. And — I don't even know why I was watching that channel, but this ad came on. And they had all the usual stuff about how useful they are — you are — and how you're good with helping people, and I just — I wanted someone to listen. Someone to talk to."

"I hear they have these other cool things that can do that, too," Gabe says. "Called people. Don't you have friends to call?"

"Not really," Gerard says.

Gabe feels kind of like an asshole. He's used to it — it doesn't sting too much. "You could go out and meet people, you know. Leave the basement." He's seen Gerard leave, it's not like he's agoraphobic or some shit.

Gerard shakes his head. "I kind of hate going out. I mean, partying or whatever."

Gabe wraps his head around that. "Okay. So… what did you want to talk about?"

Gerard shrugs and folds the sketchbook closed. "Not really about, just — someone to talk to," he explains. "I don't know what I was thinking — wait, that sounds wrong. I don't mean it was a bad idea, just that I was — in some kind of, I dunno, fugue state, and probably not really making any kind of good judgements, and when I finally fell asleep after that, I'd forgotten about it by the next morning. It was like I'd made the call and found my credit card and whatever, in my sleep." He smiles sheepishly. "I was kind of surprised to find the box."

"Sorry?" Gabe offers.

"What for?" Gerard looks genuinely baffled. "Not your fault, you were just — in it." He looks at Gabe with his head cocked. "You're not what I expected, though."

"Um." Shit, he knew he was blowing it. He's not sure how he can fix it though, not without being obvious.

"Not in a bad way!" Gerard rushes on. "But you know, you hear stories —" he stutters a seconds and Gabe fights to keeps his face impassive, interested. _Yeah_ , you hear stories. "You're a lot more interesting than I thought you'd be. More— human."

"Is… that a problem?" Gabe asks. If Gerard says yes, he's sunk — if he's already been too careless when he was trying his hardest — well, okay, no. He can do better, he's sure. Just — it's gonna suck for sure.

"No, no, I like it," Gerard says. "It's — I mean, I don't actually need an audience to talk, I mean I could sit here and talk at the wall or something, but I — I missed having someone to talk _to_."

"Who did you talk to before?"

Gerard looks surprised and a little wistful. "Mikey."

And there's that name again. It's bothering Gabe, like something he can't quite remember. He waits to see if there's any more, but Gerard doesn't explain, and Gabe doesn't think pushing now would get him anywhere. So instead he just nods and looks back over at the movie.

It ends the same way it always does. Gerard's not even paying attention, hunched over his drawing like a crazy monkey or something.

"What are you drawing?" Gabe asks.

Gerard startles, sitting up straight in a jolt and wincing. "What?"

"Your drawing." Gabe gestures towards it. "Can I see?"

"Not right now." Gerard snaps the sketchbook shut and stows it somewhere under the bed before Gabe can even catch a glimpse. Okay then.

"Sorry."

"It's fine." Gerard stands up and shuffles out of the room — Gabe hears water running — then shuffles back in. He shucks his jeans with his back to Gabe, and crawls under the covers with his socks still on.

"Shit, I forgot — can you get the light?"

"Sure." Gabe crosses over to the door, and manages not to trip on the way back, even though he's only got the jumpy light of the TV to steer by. He makes it back to the end of the bed and sits down again; Gerard's sort of slumped and curled, so there's room for Gabe's legs. Gerard's flipping through channels; Gabe thinks he sees one of the telenovelas go past again (or maybe Consuela's invented time travel), but Gerard doesn't stop; he ends up on one of the home shopping channels, and if this is how he spends his nights, Gabe can see how he ended up accidentally ordering a bot. Neither of them says anything more, apart from Gerard occasionally muttering about an ugly painting or something, and it's not that long before Gerard's breathing evens out. When Gabe looks over, the remote's sliding out of his hand and onto the mattress.

Gabe stays awake, watching the endless parade of window-washers and earrings and all-in-one kitchen slicers. He's got some business to deal with as soon as he's sure Gerard's good and out of it.

* * *

Gabe cracks the bulkhead door and pauses. There's nothing out there — or at least, there's no noise or anything he wouldn't expect. No flashing lights, no loudspeakers. Okay, maybe he's a little disappointed. He was pretty sure no one tracked him to this little slice of nowhere, but it'd be cool if they treated him like a big-shot criminal. Except for where he'd have to call Ricky to ask their dad for bail. That would be a whole lot less cool.

After a couple minutes with no SWAT team, he heaves the bulkhead door up and gets out through the gap before his shifting grip forces him to put it down again. The lawn is overgrown, and a tendril of grass — or something — almost trips him as he steps away from the door. No wonder Gerard kicked the box. He doesn't fall, though, doesn't make a noise, and now his only problem is finding where he left… well, the body. He has a vague recollection of steps.

The lawn in front looks better, shorter, so there isn't a trail he can follow, like a — tracker or whatever. It takes a few rounds of peering under the edge of the house, hoping there isn't a raccoon waiting to claw his face off and that the nosy neighbors are asleep, before he catches sight of a glimmer of pale plasticky pseudo-skin near the porch. Oh, hey. Steps, dumbass.

Gabe looks around, but things are quiet on the street, and the house is set back enough that the streetlight — well, it doesn't light him up completely. He hopes. He reaches in and grabs the flopped-out wrist, and drags the bot out that way until he can grab it under the armpits and start around the back.

The grass in the back yard is even worse than what's around the side, snakey and trying to grab his ankles any time he takes an unwise step. It wasn't this bad when he came here, was it? Surely he'd remember. Then again, he only remembers bits and pieces of that night up to when Gerard pulled the box open, so he can't say for certain. He drops the bot just past the bulkhead and goes poking at the lattice blocking off the space under the house around on this side, prying at it until he coaxes a section off. He goes back for the bot and stuffs it as best he can into the opened space. It's not easy; it's limp, not quite like something dead — it's too heavy — but like a really heavy beanbag or something. With arms.

"Sorry, dude," Gabe mutters, as he tries to sort one arm out of the weird pretzel it's twisted into and cram it out of sight. Then he feels stupid for apologizing; it's a bot, it doesn't care. It's probably not even switched on.

Fuck, Gabe really hopes it isn't switched on.

The problem is, even though it's not quite right — face too symmetrical and smooth, something just a little bit off, or at least Gabe wants to believe it is — it's way too close to human-looking. Gabe takes a last look before he wedges the section of lattice back; the bot's sprawled on its back, one leg folded up strangely. "Sorry," Gabe says again, and closes over the gap.

He pulls the grass up so it doesn't look so much like someone's been poking around here. It passes all right in the bad light, and anyway, from the state of the lawn it doesn't look like anyone really comes this way except Gerard, and hopefully he won't look this way. If anyone notices anything, they'll probably think it was that raccoon Gabe was worried about.

He stands up and dusts off his hands, shaking off the last traces of unease at the same time. It's just a bot, he needs to keep pretending it's him — or he's it — for a few days, that means the bot can't be where someone might find it. He'd take it further away except it's probably a bad idea to go hauling around what looks like a body. Even Gabe can figure that one out. There's already a spider climbing along one of the slats of the lattice; it's like nothing ever got moved.

Gabe soft-foots back to the bulkhead and eases it open. The hinges creak, but it's not too bad, and he catches the door so it doesn't slam behind him. He stands and waits outside Gerard's bedroom, but there's no sound from inside — at least, nothing over the early-morning murmur of the TV. It sounds like one of those really long commercials for exercise machinery or something. Gabe puts his hand on the door, about to push it open, then stops and eyes the hallway leading to the stairs up. He could go and find that ramen, maybe. If he's lucky he can even stash something for later.

The kitchen is dark and quiet, just the little light on the coffeemaker left on. Gabe waits to let his eyes adjust some more, then finds his way around mostly by touch. He's really hoping they don't have cockroaches. He finds the fridge all right, and it's actually pretty well-stocked. He changes his mind about ramen and pulls out the bag of bread and the jar of peanut butter that's right there in the door — he feels like he's about seven years old, but fuck it, this is faster than anything else. One sandwich vanishes in about the time it takes him to inhale, and he's working on a second one as he goes rooting through the cupboards as quietly as he can.

He turns up some granola bars that somehow he suspects aren't Gerard's, crackers, and the last of a bag of Oreos. Fuck it, he'll take it. He pauses to make one more half-sandwich, cleans up the knife he used and the crumbs on the counter, and sneaks back down the stairs with the Oreos held in his teeth.

He's halfway back to Gerard's doorway when he realizes that he's going to have to find somewhere to hide everything he's carrying, and it's all wrapped in plastic, and it's gonna be noisy. Fuck. He watches Gerard when he pushes the door open, but there's no change in his breathing as far as Gabe can tell, and no sign he notices anything as Gabe eases across the room and finds a space at the back of the desk, behind the stacks of books and paper and dishes, that's big enough to hold some crackers. From the look of the dishes, Gerard doesn't come near the desk, and if he does, well, maybe he'll think he brought the food down or something. In another one of those fugue states.

When he turns the TV off all the way, there's still enough light filtering in through the high windows to let him make his way over to the bed without tripping on shit. Yeah, Gerard's using a good part of the bed, but Gabe'd like to be able to stand up straight in the morning; he's not going to try to sleep sitting up or some shit. Besides, if Gerard was going to get weird, he's had plenty of chances already. While he's asleep isn't that high-risk, and Gabe's pretty sure he could punch him in the head anyway.

"Shove over," he mutters, and Gerard mumbles something back in his sleep. Gabe makes enough space to stretch out in, and his feet hang over the end of the bed, yeah, but he's slept through worse. Between that and the way the sheets smell a little like unwashed rat, it's almost homey.

He keeps turning the bot over in his mind, the way it was so limp, the way it really looked almost human. It didn't have much of a life to look forward to, probably, and then Gabe went and screwed with that, even. Sucks to be a Special Friend, probably. Is it going to… rot, or whatever, out there under the porch? He's not too sure about what it's even made of, apart from the manual's whole thing about how Special Friends are _completely washable in your home shower!_ He has a flash of things nesting in its hair, bugs or mice crawling into its pockets, and shudders.

He puts it out of his mind by thinking about what he's going to do when he can get back out there. He's never been big on planning ahead, so he doesn't know where he wanted to be at this point in his life, but he knows this is not it. Hiding out in a basement — someone else's basement, even — is pretty low. He knows he used to have dreams, he used to know he was going to burn up the night and make people fucking listen to him, but that got lost somewhere along the way. He's spinning his wheels, and he needs something to get him out of it. Another band, maybe, completely different from what Midtown was and the scenesters can just blow him. Could be fucking awesome, blow their faces off.

At some point he starts thinking about how he's going to have a team of trained snakes to sing in harmony, and he knows he's dreaming, but he doesn't bother waking up. Snakes have some pretty good tunes, who knew.

* * *

Gerard kind of reeks. Gabe knows this up close and personal because right now Gerard is hugging onto him like he's some sort of giant teddy bear, and he's about two and a half inches away from Gabe's nose. Dude needs a shower like — Gabe's too sleepy to come up with anything that anyone needs as much. He's also warm, like some sort of person-shaped furnace, and it's almost comfy, because the basement's a little cool, but it's a little too much.

Gabe wiggles out of Gerard's death-hug and slides down to the end of the bed and off. He stretches until he feels something pop in his back, then keeps stretching until something else pops and he can put his arms down. Ow, fuck.

The light coming through the windows is greyish and cold; it must be early. He decides to risk another kitchen foray; hopefully no one's up yet. He listens at the door and doesn't hear anything; finally he eases it open a crack, looks as much as he can, and slips through.

The kitchen smells gloriously of coffee; the pot's standing full and steaming. That probably means Gabe only has a little time before someone comes looking for their first cup. He tiptoes across to the cupboards and pulls a mug off the shelf over the coffeemaker. It clinks against another one and he winces, but it probably sounds louder to him than to anyone else. At least, no one comes in yelling about what he's doing stealing the coffee, and he relaxes again.

He's only just slotted the carafe back into place when he hears a creak from upstairs and hightails it back down the stairs. He only just remembers not to let the door slam behind him, and almost trips over his own feet on the top step, but he catches himself and only spills a little of the coffee. Score. Too bad he didn't get to snag something to eat, but that's what the Oreos are for.

His phone beeps at him when he's just at the bottom of the stairs, and he grunts in irritation — he thought he had it off. Maybe his ass turned it on some time during the night, fucking thing. (The phone or his ass, he'll apply it to both right now.) He pulls it out anyway and checks the screen. Its problem right now is low battery, but there's a text from Ed from last night.

 _Wtf are u thought we wr on 4 ginos_

He can't think of anything he wants to say to Ed. He settles on _Sry_ and turns the thing off. No point running it down when he doesn't know if he can recharge it anytime soon. He takes a slurp of coffee. Ow, right, hot.

Gerard makes a pained noise and rolls over when Gabe opens the door. "Fuck," he mutters. Gabe swallows as fast as he can.

"Good morning?" he tries. What does a bot say in the morning?

"Uh." Gerard drags himself up to sitting, then suddenly perks up. "Coffee?" He makes little grabby hands towards Gabe.

It was probably kind of much to think he's get to keep it. Gabe hands the cup over. Gerard inhales the entire thing, and when he opens his eyes again, they look a lot more awake. It's impressive.

"Thanks," he says, and balances the cup on top of a pile of books and DVD cases and a radio and Gabe doesn't know what-all next to the bed. Gabe's starting to suspect how all the drifts of dishes got abandoned down here. "What time is it?"

"Uh." Gabe looks around, finally spots a clock behind a stack of comic books. "Almost eight," he says, and hopes it's right.

"Fuck, I'm going to be late," Gerard says, and stands up impressively quickly for someone who was barely conscious about two minutes ago. "It's Tuesday, right?" he asks — the air, or the universe or something; not Gabe, since he doesn't bother waiting for an answer, just staggers out of the room in a more or less straight line. Gabe hears a thump, but there's no screaming so he doesn't worry too much.

He backtracks to the kitchen door. He still doesn't hear anyone in the room, so he takes the chance on refilling the coffee cup he reclaimed. He's almost back down to the bottom of the steps when the door at the top swings open and a woman yells down, "Gerard?"

Gabe freezes in place on the stairs, but there's no way she didn't see him. He swings around and aims a smile her way — charming, he's going for charming. "Good morning," he says.

She squints down at him — skinny, tan, bags under her eyes and bleach-blonde hair. "You must be one of Gerard's friends," she says.

"Yes, Ma'am," he says.

"Can you remind him we're gonna be late tonight? Thanks," she says, and closes the door again. Her heels clack sharply against the floor overhead, and a heavier, duller set crosses the other way. It's less than two minutes before Gabe hears the front door slam and a car pull out from the side of the house.

It's only a minute or so after that that he hears the bathroom door open and Gerard wanders back in wearing the same t-shirt he slept in and a towel wrapped around his waist. He homes in on the cup Gabe's holding, just like before, and Gabe just gives it up. It's probably easier than trying to argue he needs coffee too. Gerard hands back the mug when it's empty. Gabe's not sure if he's happy about that or not.

"Your… mom? She said she's going to be late tonight," he says, checking the bottom of the mug in case Gerard missed some.

"The — oh, yeah. Shit, I have to go _now_ ," Gerard mutters. He skitters around to get dressed, pulling shorts on under the towel, only taking off the old shirt when he has his back to Gabe.

He leaves it where it drops, and goes digging in another pile, coming up with a button-down that's only a little crumpled. Another pile yields black jeans without more than one worn-grey patch, and that's the extent of preparations; once he's wearing shoes, Gerard grabs his bag and heads out, without even brushing his hair. Wherever he works, Gabe wants a job. Maybe they have an opening for a washed-up ex-rockstar who's got way too many people who want to talk to him.

"Um. Thanks for the coffee," Gerard says, pausing at the door out.

"Sure." At the last minute, Gabe goes along in case he needs distracting; Gerard doesn't look like someone who looks under the house on a regular basis, but then, he _lives_ under the house, so who knows? He doesn't notice a thing, though, already looking towards the street and muttering about a bus as he closes the doors. Gabe's left at the bottom of the steps, looking up at the cobwebs on the underside of the bulkhead. He feels like he ought to have a frilly apron, or maybe a handkerchief to wave. Fuck, he needs something to do.

He turns his phone back on to check if there's anything more from Ed. There's one from a number Gabe doesn't recognize asking if they're meeting up later — ha, signs point to no — and a reply from Ed that says _Jimmys bn askin where u r_. Jimmy has no fucking business knowing where he is, and if he's asking, no way is Gabe going to give him an easy answer. Gabe tells Ed as much, then switches the phone off again. He still doesn't want to talk to anyone. Playing dress-up doll's better right now.

Apart from the going nuts from telenovelas thing.

Gabe waits a while, but there's no sound from upstairs, and finally he goes back to the kitchen. The house has that empty feeling — it's different from a house with people in it who aren't making noise, there's something different about the silence. Even so, Gabe waits after he steps into the kitchen, just in case… he's not sure. Fuck, maybe there's another bot around.

The coffeepot is still a quarter full, so he gets a clean mug and fills it. This one he gets to drink all by himself, never mind that it's not totally hot any more. And while he's up here, he makes himself another sandwich. Both hands and his mouth full, he decides to do a little bit of exploring while he's alone.

That's a mistake — when he looks into the next room, the coffee and the sandwich both almost end up on the floor. Someone in this house collects dolls — Gabe flashes back to the woman with bleached hair. They're… not everywhere, but holy fuck, there're enough of them. They're looking at him. Creepy glass eyes and those weirdly disturbing painted faces, and the tiny little china hands — Gabe shudders. Does some kind of doll fetishism just run in the family or something? Because if he's gotten in with someone who's acting out a bigger and better fantasy — ew. If the woman who yelled down the stairs earlier is the doll collector, he hopes no one mentions the fake-bot in the basement to her. Or anyone else. Gabe has no desire to end up on a stand in the front room.

But what the fuck, he keeps wandering through the house. What he can see outside looks boring, but not like anyone spends extra time outside. At least there's not that much chance that someone will call the cops to report a suspicious stranger; Gabe's guessing that people mind their own business around here, and don't go trying too hard to peer in other people's windows. On the other hand, it leaves him not that inclined to go wandering around outside on his own.

The stairwell's plastered with pictures, those bullshit family portraits from Sears, some that have to be school pictures or whatever. The same two boys are in most of them, one rounder, one skinnier. The pictures are all mixed up, so they get older, then younger, then older again on the way to the second floor. It's a little wiggy.

The first bedroom Gabe opens must be the parents', or the mom's; there's shirt laid over the back of a pulled-out chair, some kind of perfume and hairspray still floating in the air. It's a little bit creepy to snoop in, and Gabe pulls the door closed quickly, leaving it almost-shut, the way it was. The next one, though. It has the same signs of being occupied — stuff messed up on top of the dresser, a pair of shoes kicked into a corner — but the air's empty, cool and dusty like a shed snakeskin. The room's clean — at least, over the underlying clutter, it's not dusty or anything — it's just…empty.

No one lives here anymore.

Gabe pads across the carpet, feeling vaguely like he shouldn't disturb shit in here, and checks out the pile of CDs splayed under the window. Misfits, Smashing Pumpkins, yeah, but a bunch of Jersey bands too, names Gabe's seen on maybe two ratty flyers. And fuck, someone actually bought "Forget What You Know" and didn't hate it so much they set it on fire.

Gabe pulls it out of the middle of the stack and turns the case over in his fingers. He wishes he could ask whoever lived here, whoever bought this and brought it home and listened to it and thought it was worth keeping in a stack, he wishes he could ask them if — fuck. Not if they got it, not if they understood, just — if it _mattered_.

He spins the jewelcase between his fingers on opposite corners, watching the light flash on the dull plastic. There's some thought trying to make itself known, something floating around in his head that he can almost get a grip on, but then a car door slams right under the window and he's shocked out of his reverie. He puts the CD back into the pile — hastily, but somewhere near the place he pulled it from because he'd notice that shit — and backs out the door. He makes it down the stairs as fast and quietly as he can, past the fucked-up dolls and back down into the basement.

When he leans against the wall at the bottom of the stairs, heart thumping in his ears, he's not even sure why he ran. He looks at the dull grey wall opposite him — it's not like this is some kind of magic safe space where no one can see him. That thing he almost had hold of is still floating around while he thinks, but it's further away now. He can't do more than feel the edges.

He wanders back to Gerard's room and kicks at the bed a couple of times before he starts stripping the sheets off on automatic. He needs something mindless to do without thinking about it, and if he's gotta pretend to be a dress-up doll, he wants to do it without smelling like someone else's old socks.

Nothing falls out of the sheets except a pencil and a spoon. Gabe leaves them on the floor and trails off to the laundry room — sheets, detergent, turn the little knobs and let it run; this is the simpleminded sort of shit he can do almost in his sleep. He leans against the machine for a little bit, but it's noisy, and he keeps being distracted by it. Instead he goes and wanders up and down the hallway, wanders back into Gerard's room, staring at things and waiting for something to spark off the chain in his head that leads to what he's trying to figure out. It doesn't work — might help if he had a better idea what he was trying to think about, or maybe not — so finally he gives up and just lets his brain drift. He stuffs the wet sheets into the dryer, dumps a bunch of — t-shirts and whatever, he's not looking that closely to be honest — into the washer and starts them both, then goes back to staring into space.

When he's made the bed with the clean sheets, folded the clothes and left them in a pile, and kicked the spoon under the bed because he doesn't really want to touch it — he's out of mindless tasks. Unless he starts more laundry, and he's kind of bored with that. What he really wants is someone to talk to, but there's no one here. He eyes the weird taxidermied bat paperweight, but it doesn't have any answers. Finally he gets tired of enough of the rattling in his own head that he turns the TV on again. There's a rerun of one of the _Die Hard_ s on, awesome.

He drifts up to the kitchen for a snack — still no one up there, and no car in the driveway — and drifts back down, some time later. He takes a shower just for something to do — and hey, he washed the towels, he's entitled to get 'em dirty again — and steals one of the t-shirts he washed for good measure. He doesn't have any huge insights in the shower, and he's back to wondering what the fuck he was thinking, going through with this. He could be gone anytime here. There's something he wants to figure out, though. He hopes he'll let himself know when he figures out what it _is_.

It's getting late enough that Gabe's starting to wonder if he's been abandoned, or if the message this morning was code for "leaving on vacation for a month" or something, when he hears footsteps overhead again. Someone yells down, "Gerard?" — maybe the same woman from this morning. Gabe holds his breath and tries not to make any suspicious noises; after a few seconds, she yells again, but he doesn't hear her coming down the stairs. Gabe's not sure how he'd pass himself off as a friend just hanging out in the basement while Gerard's not home, since pretty clearly Gerard doesn't have friends that do that. The door upstairs closes, and Gabe lets himself move again.

Waiting is still a killer, though. He's bored and twitchy — admittedly the two go together a lot of the time — and not wanting to make any noise makes him even twitchier. The light coming in through the window fades out and turns into indirect streetlights, but Gabe's not sure he dares turn a light on — if Gerard's mom or whoever else is upstairs sees it and knows Gerard's not home, could be trouble. He's listening so hard for the bulkhead door that he doesn't notice he's hearing feet on the kitchen stairs until Gerard yells, "Yeah, I will, thanks."

Gerard schleps in the door a few seconds after that, dropping his satchel in the corner where he picked it up this morning. Gabe is so happy for a break in the monotony and waiting, he can't even deal — and yeah, he knows that he's responding like a happy housewife in some 1950s "How to Please Your Husband" list or something, but he finds himself asking how Gerard's day was.

"Good for — well, for what I do, I guess." Gerard shrugs. "It's not exactly exciting." He flops down onto the bed and picks up that sketchbook like it's autopilot. Maybe it is.

"What do you do?" Gabe's so desperate for conversation, he actually wants to know. This is probably a bad sign.

Gerard waves a hand. "Ad agency. I'm a graphic designer." He snorts. "Or so they say. I don't think anyone there gets to actually _design_ anything."

"What do you … make ads for?" This isn't something Gabe's ever thought about before.

"Whatever they want me to, basically. Or, what they tell us. See, it's a whole group of us, and all the decisions get made by someone—" he waves a hand over his head; Gabe's guessing that means 'higher-ups' "—and it's things like 'Make us feel happy,' and 'I don't like the yellow,' and we're supposed to come up with something usable out of shit like that." He huffs out a breath. "And to make it worse, there's like five of us working on one project, so we can't agree on anything, and what we end up with is basically the idea that no one cared about enough to hate." He sits up a little straighter, like he's hitting his stride. "I don't think they even know what they want to ask for, really. But they can't say that, or explain it in short words, because they're worried they'll sound dumb or something, so it's all these stupid made-up ad-words that don't mean anything, and then mean something else the next time."

"Sounds tough," Gabe offers.

Gerard considers for a few seconds. "It could be worse," he says at last. "Like, when I get to actually try out ideas, even when I know they'll never make it past the execs, that's okay. It's just — not what I imagined doing with my life, you know? Not part of my _vision_." He does finger-quotes and everything, his nose scrunched up, and Gabe has to bite back a laugh.

"Yeah, I know how that goes." Gerard looks at him a little questioningly, and Gabe distracts him fast. "How long have you worked there?"

"Almost a year." Gerard sounds weirdly proud of that, and Gabe's not sure why, if he hates it so bad. Still, a job's a job. Is another thing he doesn't have. Fuck it.

While he's mulling, Gerard wriggles around until he can reach under the bed, and — he has a fridge down here? Gabe can't believe he missed that. Gerard comes back up, red-faced, clutching a can of Coke in the hand he's not using to keep from faceplanting on the floor. He picks the remote up off the bedside locker.

"Movie?"

Fuck it, Gabe thinks again. "Sounds good," he says.

"Pick something," Gerard suggests.

Gabe's not sure, but he pulls one almost at random out of the stack — looks like something with zombies and a really schlocky plot, not that that really distinguishes it from the rest of them. He sticks it in the player and Gerard makes an approving noise.

"Good choice."

For all that, though, he doesn't offer commentary the way he did the night before. Maybe his mysterious brother didn't like it as much, or something. He splits his attention between the movie and whatever he's drawing, glancing up and then going back to the paper in a slightly offbeat rhythm that Gabe can't help but want to figure out.

For his part Gabe settles in on the end of the bed and watches Gerard until he's tired of even pretending he's interested in the movie.

"So what did you want to do?" he asks. Gerard starts a bit like he wasn't expecting a question, and Gabe elaborates. "Before. You said your job isn't what you wanted to do."

Gerard shrugs, the set of his mouth unhappy at the edges.

"I wanted to make a difference," he says, concentrating on his shading. "I wanted — fuck, I was a kid, I thought I could change the world with art or some shit. Then I got out of art school and found out that pretty much the best you can hope for is a job that lets you eat, like anything else." He turns the sketchbook sideways and keeps working. "And I thought, you know, September 11, that was some sort of sign, that was—" he breaks off and looks sideways. "Like a sign to take my chances while I could, you know? Make something real."

"Like what?"

Gerard shrugs. "Music. I mean, art, you have to convince someone to buy it, display it, whatever. Music — it's everywhere. And I thought maybe we could reach out, make a difference to someone, change — something." He shrugs again. "Yeah."

Gabe knows that story all right, but there was something in there that caught his attention. "We?"

"Me and Mikey. We had a band — well, we were going to have a band. Sorta did. Us and Otter and Ray." He looks up, eyes bright. "We even played a couple of gigs."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Gerard's face shuts down again. "Then it just — fell apart, I guess. I fell apart." The hand with the pencil waves in the air like he's answering something in class.

"What happened then?"

"I don't know." Gerard crouches tighter over the sketchpad. "I wasn't paying too much attention for a while there. Otter left. I heard Ray does some studio work. I haven't seen either of them in — well, a while. Since then."

"Hey, shit happens." Gabe's been telling himself that for months, he might as well share the wisdom. "Not your fault."

Gerard laughs like he doesn't think it's funny. "Yeah, it was. I locked up. And I — we really thought we had a chance, you know? All of us. Mikey even learned bass for me." He smiles down at the paper, a small, shuttered thing.

There it is again, a fishhook twitching at something in the back of Gabe's head. It's driving him a little nuts that he can't get a grip on it.

"And Mikey is…." Gabe trails the sentence, hoping Gerard will pick it up.

"My brother. My little brother. He's — he's a good guy." Gerard smiles down at the bed, a private smile.

"Yeah?"

Gerard nods. "It's always been the two of us, you know? And — I miss him."

"Where is he?" As soon as he's said it, Gabe wants to bite his tongue, because what if he's dead or something? But no, Gerard said 'is,' and now he's just looking distant, not quite sad.

"He left."

Bit by bit, Gabe gets it out of him: the brother, Mikey, had some sort of mental breakdown, maybe, and decided he needed to get away from his family or that they'd be better off without him for a while. He left one message not actually explaining this, and since then he hasn't been answering his phone or returning Gerard's calls or texts. Gerard blames himself.

"I shoulda known something was wrong, you know?" Gerard winds up at last. "But —" He pins Gabe with a bright stare. "I was kind of fucked up. For, like, a while. So I didn't even notice."

Gabe's not sure what to say. He doesn't know what it must have been like, not really. He can imagine, but — yeah. He can't really sympathize.

"Drinking more didn't help, it turned out, just left me leaving voicemails — who the fuck knows where. Out there in the ether somewhere." Gerard's voice is light, but his pencil's drawing jagged, jerky shapes in the margins. "Maybe he got them anyway."

"Maybe he did," Gabe agrees.

"You're good at this, you know?" Gerard gives Gabe a lopsided smile. "Listening, I mean."

"Thanks." Gabe thinks he does okay keeping it from turning into a question. Gerard gives him another second of that smile before he goes back to his drawing, which doesn't help answer it.

By the time the credits roll, Gabe can tell Gerard's about finished with whatever he was working on; he spends more time looking at it and considering than adding more. He's not sure what to make of Gerard's expression when he looks at the drawing, though.

Gabe leans over. "Whatcha got?"

Gerard lifts it up so he can't see the page, and shakes his head. "Just drawing," he says. "You can maybe see it later."

Now Gabe _really_ wants to know. He tries to crane his neck around sideways, but Gerard shoves at him and he overbalances and kind of bounces off the wall before he collapses on the bed. Ow. Once he's settled, though, it's pretty comfy — the bed smells clean, now, even if it is starting to pick up Gerard's funk. But hey, it's not like Gabe hasn't won stink-off contests before. That was on the bus, true. But still.

He sniffs at Gerard's shirt where it's near his nose, stops and sniffs again. Soap?

Gerard looks down, puzzled and a little scandalized-looking. "What are you doing?"

Gabe squints up. "Did you shower?"

"No." Gerard gets the whole pout thing, like he's a little kid who doesn't want a bath.

"Just asking." Gabe rolls back and stares up at the ceiling. "Hey, wanna make out?"

He's not sure why that comes out of his mouth; Gabe's made out with a lot worse than Gerard, even if he was sometimes shitfaced, and hey, they're already on a bed, but he'd been planning on staying clear of this. If he'd known ahead of time how it'd make Gerard's eyes go wide, though, he might have said it just for that, and had a camera ready.

"What? No!"

"C'mon, it'll be awesome." Gabe props himself up on one elbow and cranes his neck up at Gerard. "I'll prove it."

Gerard is looking back down at him over the edge of the sketchpad, the pencil he was using drooping down towards Gabe. Gabe kinda wants to bat his fingers at it, but it probably wouldn't go well.

"Are you okay?" Gerard asks. "Shit, I shouldn't have — did I like, fry your circuits or something? You okay?"

"Peachy," Gabe tells him. Gerard's skin is sort of peachy, actually, soft and a little fuzzy. Gabe slides his fingers under the edge of Gerard's shirt and pets it a little.

"Hey!" Gerard shoves his hand away. "Stop that."

"No." Gabe turns the pet to a poke. He's bored and he's tired and he's sick of being cooped up in this basement with nothing but bad special effects, and he wants something to _do_. And maybe a little he wants to stop Gerard looking like he broke something he can't fix.

Gerard tastes like soda and graphite over a three-hour commute. Gabe leans back and gets the sketchbook out of the way before kissing him again. "Piquant," Gabe declares.

Gerard just looks at him, stone-faced. "What are you doing?"

Wow, someone's slow to get with the program. Gabe sits up so he can reach better, and gives one of his best grins; not the one he used to use on groupies, but the one he saved for the people who needed more persuading. "Getting off. Feel free to join in anytime." He doesn't wait for an answer, just starts nuzzling at Gerard's neck.

"You can't—" Gerard locks up for a second, then starts flailing, waving his hands around and pushing Gabe away in the middle of all of that. He scoots over as far on the bed as he can. "You can't," he says, more firmly this time. "You don't really want to."

"Sure I do." Gabe slowly sits up, aware this isn't going the way he meant it to but not entirely sure why. "It's no big deal, right?" Maybe that's Gerard's problem.

"I know it's probably part of your programming or whatever, but you only think you're supposed to," Gerard tells him. "You're not actually giving consent, because you can't, and that's why we can't. It would be wrong," he finishes, almost primly.

Right, that's what had slipped Gabe's mind — and he was worried about Gerard being a creepy bot-molester. Somewhere right now, the universe is laughing its metaphorical ass off. Gabe can tell.

Hang on a second. Gabe thinks it through and says, "But isn't telling me what I can and can't decide another way of taking my choices away?" He's pretty proud of that argument, but Gerard just shakes his head.

"You only think you have a choice," he says. "I can't let you say yes when you can't really say no."

His mouth is set in a firm line, and Gabe gives up. "Fine," he huffs, and rolls over to face the wall, putting his back to the room and Gerard. So much for anything to break the monotony. He should just demand to be returned to the factory — except no, that's still a bad idea.

He hears Gerard sigh and mutter something, and then the bed shifts. Gabe refuses to look, but he can imagine Gerard balancing way out on the edge, refusing to touch Gabe anywhere in case he, whatever, sets of the crazy-sex-monkey programming. Serve him right to be hanging his ass off the edge of his own bed; Gabe's not moving. There's some paper shuffling — maybe Gerard turning the page — and then he must hit play on the remote again, because the movie starts over. Gabe shuts his eyes and determinedly thinks about nothing, and fades out to the sound of zombies taking over the world all over again.

He wakes up in the middle of the night — or, well, some time before it's light. It's quiet outside — all the late night partiers are home tucked up in bed, or crashed on someone else's floor, or maybe still going. The only noise in the basement is the DVD menu looping again, and a quiet sleepy murmur from Gerard. He's turned over in his sleep, sort of curled up in a ball against Gabe's back with one arm flung out over Gabe's shoulder.

He's not a bad dude, cockblocking aside — and he cockblocked himself, too, so Gabe can't really hold it against him. Ha ha. He's kind of fucked up though, which Gabe feels he can comment on with some authority, as a man who pretty much set out to burn down his own life. The more pieces he gets of this puzzle, though, the more interested he gets.

Well, lookie there. He has a new purpose in life. Gabe snorts to himself and elbows Gerard a little — Gabe Saporta does not fucking snuggle, and just because he was unconscious is no reason to get ideas. Gerard just mumbles something and squeezes closer, so Gabe steals the pillow for good measure and goes back to sleep.

* * *

He wakes up feeling like he does when someone's about to write DICK on his forehead in Sharpie. He turns his head, and Gerard's watching him from the other side of the bed, green-hazel eyes wide on Gabe's face. It's unnerving; Gabe's usually the one doing the looking, and he's pretty sure he doesn't have that _planning_ lookon his face when he does it, either.

"What," he mutters, short version of _Why the hell are you watching me like a creeper?_

"Hi," Gerard says. He studies Gabe for a little bit longer, enough that Gabe's starting to fidget but he feels like he should back away without dropping eye contact or something. Or maybe that's wolves, he's not sure at this point.

"Thanks," Gerard says, and it's unexpected enough that Gabe is startled out of wondering where he's planning to hide the body and says, "For what?" instead.

Gerard kind of shrugs with the shoulder he's not lying on. "For listening, I guess." He drops Gabe's gaze and takes in more of his face, looking over the rest of him. "You're kind of like him, you know? Mikey, I mean."

"Okay?" Maybe a bolt for the door wouldn't be out of place after all.

"Not physically, though yeah, sort of. More like — you listened." Gerard waves a hand. "Thanks."

"You're welcome."

Gerard looks at Gabe like he wants to say something else.

"I lied," he says after a few seconds. Gabe waits for the rest of it, but it doesn't seem to be coming.

"About what?"

"When I called." Gerard picks at the sheet. "The first time, he picked up."

Gabe's missing something. "That's good, though, right?"

Gerard shakes his head. "I was drunk, it was the middle of the night, I don't know what I said. He said — he told me—" Gerard takes a deep breath and pokes at the bed again. "He said, 'Gee, I can't do this any more.'" He looks up at Gabe with his mouth twisted to one side. "After that he stopped answering."

"Oh. Shit."

Gerard shrugs. "No one's fault but my own. I wish I could tell him, though. That — I had to get my head out of my ass, I had to do something."

"That's why you don't go out partying," Gabe guesses.

"Yeah. It's been fifteen months now." Gerard scrubs a hand through his hair. "If my life had a real narrative arc, this is where Mikes would come back and we'd have the reunion montage." He sits up and looks over at the clock. "Shit, is that the time? I gotta go."

Gabe has a hunch. "Is Mikey into music?"

"Huh?" Gerard pauses in his hunt through the pile of clean shirts. "Did you do laundry? You don't have to do that."

Gabe shrugs it off. "I had some free time. But your brother? Music, yeah?"

"Yeah, he was—" Gerard makes another of those untranslatable hand gestures. "I think he went to pretty much everything he could get to, he'd even play hooky for shows in the city." He smiles a little. "He got me to go with him a few times, and I think he knew, like, everyone there."

"Yeah?" Gabe's thinking furiously, trying to call up some face that looks like Gerard, looks like someone the other kid in the photos upstairs could have grown into. He can't picture anyone, and it's driving him nuts, because if this brother — who he's inclined to like anyway because hey, awesome taste — was a scenester, Gabe should _know_ him. Unless he's completely lost his fucking grip in the last year and change, which is admittedly a possibility.

"It's probably better for him to be out of here," Gerard's saying when Gabe tunes back in. "I mean, this place just drags you down, and me—" he shrugs. "Mikey deserves better, you know? Anyway, I'll be back later."

 _Yeah, but you're still hanging around waiting for him to come back,_ Gabe wants to say, but before he can figure out how, the door's shut behind Gerard. Gabe flops back on the bed and sighs at the ceiling. This is some fucked-up shit here, and again, he says this with authority.

He hears the bulkhead doors slam, and it's like something just snaps. He cannot stand another day of this bullshit, lying around with his thumbs up his ass. This place drags you down, Gerard said, and Gabe's been _letting_ it, just spinning his wheels and pretending there was nothing he could do. The twitchy feeling's back and burning under his skin, and all he needs is a target.

He pushes up off the bed and does a fast double lap of the room, which takes about twenty seconds, then doubles back the other way.

The sketchbook next to the bed catches his eye, and he grabs it up and flips it open. Partly he's just tired of Gerard being weird and cagey about it, partly there's gotta be something in there that's important, and Gabe is sick of trying to guess his way through, here. He ruffles the pages fast and nothing falls out, so he starts over at the beginning. The first few pages are clearly done by someone with talent — more than Gabe's got, anyway — but nothing too out there; landscapes, empty of people but with an unnerving eerie feeling, like something weird is going on just out of the frame, or like they might move if you look away. It gets weirder the further in he goes; there's a page of zombies on a carousel, what the fuck, another of vampires at a ballet lesson? That one's pretty funny, actually, in the middle of the total WTFness.

Then the drawings shift to portraits; there are several of the same woman, older, sharp-eyed, from different angles. She looks some like the woman with the bleached hair, Gerard's mom. Gabe keeps turning pages. The entire rest of the book, down to the last three or four blank pages left at the end, are the same person, over and over again. Or at least, Gabe thinks it's the same person — the build and the way he's shown are consistent, whether he's sitting, walking away, holding a raygun in some sort of weird desert moonscape — but his face is turned away, or hinted at, or covered with a huge motorcycle helmet. It's weird, and a little familiar. Gabe turns a few more pages — the same guy, starfished and floating in… space? Maybe? — and comes face-to-face with a full-page portrait, the guy (the hair's the same, it must be) staring out of the page at him, dark eyes and a complicated expression.

And fuck, Gabe _knows_ this guy.

It's hardly a distinction; everyone knows Mikeyway. Gabe's seen him around, in clubs and at gigs; he thinks they might have hooked up a time or two, back in the day, but by the time they might have, Gabe was so fuzzy he's amazed he remembers his _own_ name from some of those nights. Flipping back through the pages now, he can see it; that's the awkward-antelope way Mikeyway stands, like he might fall apart at any moment into an unconnected tangle of limbs, but shellacked with confidence and attitude. Gabe's seen that exact pose leaning up against a cement-brick wall somewhere backstage — okay, he thinks they probably _did_ hook up at some point, because the tangle that comes along with remembering that includes nakedness. He never saw the guy holding a raygun, but if he had — he's pretty sure it'd look just like that.

So — fuck. Is Mikeyway the brother Gerard's been talking about missing? The pictures are just signed with a "G" when they're signed at all,; that's no help. Gabe stumbles over to the desk and paws through a pile of papers that were shoved to the back — some of them are hiding his Oreos, actually. There's a paystub, dated like four months ago, that's made out to Gerard A. Way.

Fuck. It _is_ Mikeyway.

And yeah, Gabe hadn't seen him around for a while, but he'd thought nothing of it. He hasn't been out as much, and Mikeyway was never a guy you could predict, anyway. Well, presumably someone could, but it was always a little bit of a startle to see him in the crowd, a little thrill of hey, this is worth it. Gabe figured — he'd moved on, found something far enough ahead of the curve that it'd take a few months before the scene caught up, moved away, gotten bored. Plenty of options that don't include missing, no forwarding address. Who does that?

He thumbs through the pages one more time, sheet after sheet of Mikey's nose, his glasses, the curve of his lower lip; the set of his shoulders halfway through a turn, the shape his fingers make polishing his glasses. Some of the pictures have a date scribbled at the bottom; all recent, all since Gabe stopped seeing Mikey around. Gerard's been doing these from memory, all the details stored up in his mind put down on paper instead of what's in front of him.

Gabe pauses on the last page, Mikey without his glasses and with his hair snarled in three different directions, and taps his fingers against the edge of the sketchbook. Fuck it. He wanted to do something that matters. He wanted a sign that he could do more.

He can _do_ this.

Gabe stands at the bottom of the stairs to the outside for a long moment, looking up. There's cobwebs on the underside of the doors, like he only imagined that anyone uses them. From this side, the lock is just a knob; he doesn't need to wait until nightfall and steal Gerard's keys or something.

He doesn't even need to use these doors. He could just go up through the kitchen and leave through the freaking front door, for fuck's sake. But there's something symmetrical about leaving this way, the same way he came in. Not just yet, though. Gabe goes back to Gerard's room and roots around on the desk until he finds a scrap of paper that's miraculously blank on one side — other side's an old flyer — and a pencil. Once he has those, though, he hesitates before putting them together.

 _Gotta go save the world!_ his brain tosses out, but he dismisses it. The world can do what it likes, he doesn't care. Finally he settles on _Sorry, had to go. Gabe_ , because if you can't explain, why even try? He adds _check the crawlspace_ as an afterthought and leaves the note on top of the sketchbook with the pictures of Mikey, in the middle of Gerard's bed. He finds his shoes, pats his pocket to make sure he's got his phone, and heads out. At the last minute he doubles back to the desk. The Oreos are coming with him.

The door hinges make the same, tired creak they've made every time he's heard them. The thunk as the door falls shut sounds different, though. It sounded louder from the inside.

It's broad daylight, not so late in the morning that everyone's at work or at school. There are people on the street, but no one gives Gabe another look. He strolls through the long grass of the side yard out to the sidewalk, and the only thing that happens is a kid on a bike has to swerve around him. His face isn't on wanted posters. There's no SWAT team. He is no more important than he ever thought he was. No one's going to care unless he makes them care.

He pulls out his phone and finally, finally turns it on. As soon as the signal bars light up it goes nuts, buzzing and beeping and telling him all about the seventeen thousand texts or whatever that have piled up in his inbox, and all the missed calls, and fuck's sake. People aren't ever going to quit yammering; he should know better than to try. He scrolls through and ignores all the petty shit — which is everything — then zips back to his contacts and starts texting. Someone out there's seen Mikeyway, and Gabe intends to find them. Then he's going to have to find Mikeyway himself, because he feels like he's going to have to do some persuading, and also some explaining.

Maybe he can leave out the part where he pissed in the laundry sink. Though he doubts Mikey would care.

He texts everyone he knows in Jersey and the city, and adds in the Chicago crowd and people he met once in California or somewhere, just for the hell of it. _Tell mikeyway ET phone home._ When he gets bored and his thumbs are sore, he looks around for street signs, then pokes his phone again.

He's actually hoping it gets answered, for once.

"Hey," he says, when it gets picked up. "Hey, Rob, I need a ride." He listens to Rob swear at him for a few seconds and laughs. "Yeah, I'm an asshole. Come pick me up."

* * *

The club's dark and hot and jammed with people; Gabe can't move without rubbing up against someone. The openers — some kids he's never heard of but wants to hear again — are clearing the stage, fumbling over equipment, and the lousy house mix has come back on. It's loud enough it's distorted, and the whole place smells like sweaty scene kids and cheap beer.

It's _perfect_.

Gabe fights his way over to a wall and scans across the top of the crowd. Nate's out there somewhere, his little buddy, and right now Gabe wants to tell him how awesome he is and maybe lick him just a little. Nate's a good sport about that kind of thing. Gabe can't see him though, so he settles for a better slouch and looking to see if there's anyone else lickable out there.

The tall blond looks pretty hot, and whoever he's talking to can't be as hot or awesome as Gabe. Gabe's started over there when the guy shifts with the motion of the crowd and Gabe can see it's Mikey fuckin' Way. That just makes him squirm faster, and when he gets close enough, he slings an arm around Mikey's shoulders and bellows "Mikeyway! Long time no see!" He's never pretended to have great opening lines.

Mikey tips his head back and yells, "Hey, Gabe," back. Then he gestures with the arm Gabe doesn't have pinned and says, "You know my brother, Gee?"

Whoops. Gabe looks over Mikey's shoulder, and yeah, the guy he hadn't really seen Mikey was talking to is Gerard. He looks bigger out of the basement, in a weird way, even surrounded by people. He's got the same round face and messy hair, and the same disconcertingly sharp eyes. They look at each other for a long second before Gabe twigs that he'd better do something here and says, "Yeah, I think we met somewhere." He smacks a loud kiss to Mikey's cheek and says, "Hey, great to see you back. Someone I gotta talk to." He claps Mikey on the shoulder, gives Gerard an awkward sort of nod — what? He's a little thrown! — and slides away through the crowd. Besides, there really is someone he wants to talk to — Rob told him this guy Ryland said he'd come tonight, and Gabe thinks he sees the tall storky guy Rob described.

An hour later or whatever — Gabe's not paying attention — he still doesn't know what the fuck he's doing with himself, but he has a rocking guitarist on board with whatever it is. He's in the nasty-ass bathroom splashing water on his face to make sure he's not dreaming, when the door creaks open and he looks up to the mirror to see Gerard Way coming in behind him.

Gabe freezes, and wishes he was shorter, or maybe see-through. Gerard just comes over and leans against the sink counter next to Gabe. He looks like he thinks something's funny. "So after you left, I found this body shoved under the porch."

"What'd you do with it?" Gabe's morbidly curious, he can't help it. Do they make doll stands that big?

Gerard shrugs. "I thought of keeping it, but —I sent it back. I shouldn't have bought it in the first place, and it was just too creepy to turn on, after — everything."

At least it isn't rotting with bugs in its face. "I'm sure they found it a nice new home on a farm where it can run around all day."

Gerard grimaces. "Don't. Anyway, like a week after that, Mikey called me. Said people wouldn't leave him alone until he did."

"No kidding." Gabe wipes the water off his hands and slides them into his pockets. He rocks back on his heels. "It's good to see him around again."

"Gabe — wait, that is your name, right?" Gabe nods and Gerard goes on. "I don't know — I just —" He trails off with an eloquent flail of one hand, stills it and just looks up at Gabe. "Thanks."

Gabe shrugs, light and easy. "Nothing to thank me for, dude. All part of the full Fairy Gabemama service or some shit." He takes advantage of Gerard being right there, though, leans down and kisses him before he can escape. Gerard doesn't try to get away, actually, but Gabe still steps back. Not the smartest thing to do in a shitty club in the bowels of Jersey, even if Gerard still tastes like he's been chewing pencils. He grins, and knows it's got sharp edges. "Maybe I'll see you round, yeah?" He tips his head and saunters off through the door, and he's damn sure to be lost in the crowd before it swings open again.

He's Gabe Saporta, and he's got shit to do.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> [LJ Masterpost](), if you prefer to comment there
> 
> More of [creepylicious'](http://creepylicious.livejournal.com/) great art and a DL link for [inlovewithnight's](http://inlovewithnight.dreamwidth.org/) awesome mix **Cotton Candy and a Rotten Mouth** are at the  
> [EXTRAS post on LJ](http://chalcopyrite.livejournal.com/166568.html) | [EXTRAS post on DW](http://chalcopyrite.dreamwidth.org/164901.html)


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